Around the world, 119 million girls are out of school–including 58 million of upper secondary age. For those who do attend school, experiences of discrimination and sexual harassment remain far too commonplace. In the US and the UK, past surveys have found that over half of adolescent girls and young women have experienced sexual harassment in education settings. Globally, the UN estimates that upwards of 246 million children have experienced gender-related violence in or around their schools.
Girls’ education has been referred to as “the world’s best investment,” given its extensive benefits for population health, economic growth, and sustainability. Yet for too many girls, schools remain inaccessible or unsafe. To assess country progress on supporting girls' education, Equal Futures constructed original data across 193 countries on whether national laws prohibit discrimination in education based on gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, whether laws prohibit sexual harassment in education, and whether laws ensure pregnant girls are able to continue their education. This data, current as of February 2026, builds on data constructed more than a decade ago by the WORLD Policy Analysis Center. We are grateful to WORLD's foundation and for sourcing the updated full-text legislation used by Equal Futures' analysis team to construct the data.
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